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I just finished reading "Grant," Jean Edward Smith's authoritative biography of Ulysses Grant (Simon & Schuster, 2001). (His record as president with native Americans and freed slaves will surprise those unfamiliar with it.) Turns out the author, who has a mammoth biography of Franklin Roosevelt coming out in the spring, also wrote a book which could serve as a companion piece to Bob Woodward's "Bush at War." Published by Henry Holt, it's called "George Bush's War."According to the Kirkus Reviews summary on Amazon, "in this volatile study, America's adventure. . . was not a crusade for freedom but a checkpoint on the personal agenda of George Bush, who disregarded constitutional restrictions on presidential power and cynically manipulated the public, the press, Congress, and even the military. . . . Smith chronicles Bush's personalization of the crisis and details the resulting twists and turns of public perception, policy, and action."
After becoming convinced that Saddam Hussein was a threat to the entire Middle East, "Bush's penchant for heroism. . . led him to adopt a 'crusading' posture against Iraq. This personalizing of world affairs resulted in rapid, short-term success, but Smith spells out its possible dangers for democracy: Bush's alleged disregarding of expert advice, particularly from the State Department and the military. . . . the crumbling of congressional caution during the crisis, he adds, undermined the separation of powers, making the President a virtual dictator of foreign policy.
"Particularly damning is Smith's abundant evidence of the Administration's policy of 'minimum candor'. . . . even Generals Powell and Schwartzkopf apparently learned of Bush's decision to switch from defensive to offensive operations through TV news reports." That's right -- "Bush at War" was published in 1992.
If it were pointed out to him he'd bristle, but, far from breaking his father's mold for making war in the Middle-East, George W. Bush used it to cast his war. When your prime policy maker, Cheney, was your father's secretary of defense, the continuity was inevitable.
